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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23723050">mirror in the mirror</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/starknight/pseuds/starknight'>starknight</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Doctor Who &amp; Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon Universe, Character Study, Epiphanies, Existential Angst, Existential Crisis, Existentialism, Gen, Immortality, Peaceful Resolution, Post-Episode: s12e10 The Timeless Children, Sad with a Happy Ending, Talking To Dead People, dealing with immortality</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 22:35:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,985</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23723050</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/starknight/pseuds/starknight</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“How do I live like this?” the Doctor whispers.<br/>“You live it like everyone does. One foot in front of the other. One grief at a time.”</p><p>In which the Doctor’s lost companions help her to make sense of immortality.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>The Doctor &amp; Adric (Doctor Who), The Doctor &amp; Amy Pond &amp; Rory Williams, The Doctor &amp; Clara Oswin Oswald, The Doctor &amp; Jack Harkness, The Doctor &amp; River Song, The Doctor &amp; The Master (Doctor Who)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>83</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>mirror in the mirror</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>You don’t know how tempted I was to call this My Immortal. You really, really don’t.</p><p>Mild content warning for suicidal thoughts and talking a lot about death.</p><p>My recommendation for existential crisis background listening (and the namesake for this fic): <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZe3mXlnfNc">Spiegel im Spiegel</a></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The Doctor should have known better than to hope that the universe might allow her one quiet moment to think. She doesn’t have time to say much more than </span>
  <em>
    <span>what?</span>
  </em>
  <span> before the Judoon transport seals her away into a small dark prison room. She bolts to the window in the corner, staring out at the stars, trying to recognize the local constellations.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Arcturus. Epna Ood. Kaled Ahnk.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>She breathes a sigh of relief at the familiar stars. She’s on the lumpy side of the Red Epsilon space bypass, which is not exactly local to anyone who might help her out, but it’s not so far away from civilization that she can’t find her way back. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Once she’s out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She lets go of the bars, leaving visible warm handprints on the cold metal, and turns to survey the rest of the cell. Heavy metal walls join in spacerock corners, each metal plate containing one thin light. The cell is very dimly lit despite it. In the centre is a teleport plate, about knee height, and made of - she knocks it and listens for the echo - plexistone. There’s a blue powerstrip that runs around the teleport plate on the floor, but as she watches, it powers down, the light fading and a faint humming giving way to silence.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No door. Of course. Why would a prison cell need a door? Doors were silly, silly, essential things.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor goes back to the window. Her handprints have faded already, and when she touches the bars, they’re freezing cold again. She sighs, and it makes a little puff of mist in the cool air, disappearing after a moment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Right,” she mutters. “No door. No TARDIS. Still got my - argh, really?” Her hand feels around all nine dimensions of her pocket to no avail. “No sonic? No sonic. But it’s okay, I promise. Don’t panic, Graham.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She turns to flash a grin at him before she remembers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Aaaaand no fam. Good. That’s good. If they were here, they’d be in danger, so… yeah. Good.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She walks around the cell, running her hand beneath the light strip, feeling the walls for any structural weak points, any electrical panels or handy escape switches. There’s nothing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good security. I should leave a good review. Once I’m out.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She knocks on a wall panel, but a dull thud sounds rather than the echo she was hoping for. Not hollow, then. She suspects the same rock that creeps from the corners lies beneath it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This is fine,” she says. “And I’m not panicking.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She drops to the ground and pokes her head underneath the teleport pad. There’s no rivets, no screws, just solid plexistone, perfectly firm and secure. There’s not even a water-safety rating sticker. The Doctor will have to dock points from their review for that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’d be surprised at how many people arrive on teleports soaking wet,” she insists, feeling Yaz’s disbelieving look. “I’ll take you to a water planet sometime. There’s a lovely one just round the corner, actually, with these dolphins. They’ve got a three-parent family structure traditionally, makes for a very interesting social mixup.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Silence falls, and the Doctor tries not to let her heart go with it. Yaz would love the dolphins’ planet, though she has the distinct feeling Ryan and Graham would probably spend most of their time cooped up in the TARDIS. That’d be alright. She could bring them back some damper-bread, and they could play cards over the console. Graham always likes that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor sits up and shivers. It’s not so much cold as it is completely bloody freezing. Her toes are going a bit numb - even with her Time Lord imperviousness.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Well.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her imperviousness.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Another shiver runs through her, and she pulls her knees to her chest, huddling in her coat. It’s always been her firm belief that some thoughts are best thought when warm, and if she has to think about everything the Master told her, she’s going to do her best to keep herself from freezing while she’s at it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So. I’m not a Time Lord. Or, Time Lords aren’t me. Or… All Time Lords are me. Based on me.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The words feel strange on her tongue. Heavy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I wonder who knew. Rassilon, probably. Oh, who am I kidding? Rassilon definitely knew. But the Master didn’t, and I don’t think any of the others did. They might have been… you know. Nicer. If they had. Probably would’ve wanted a slice of immortality.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s been coming for a while, this thought. She badly wants a cup of tea and a custard cream. They might help to ground her through it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m… immortal. Maybe. Probably? As far as I know. I’ll regenerate forever. I could have a hundred different faces. A thousand. A million. I could’ve already had all of those faces, and then I could have… a million more.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She laughs, and it’s a horrible sound, bitter and rancid and devoid of any humour.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And I thought Time Lords lived too long.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s not an identity crisis, exactly. She knows who she is. Her history, her memories, her core self stays the same, because she can’t remember anything that came before, and she really hopes she doesn’t ever get to. Despite what she said to the Master about </span>
  <em>
    <span>containing multitudes, </span>
  </em>
  <span>she’d much rather not be able to remember the multitudes, because that is definitely something that has the potential to break her. As long as all of that is safely wiped, then… She’s still herself. She can’t lose that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s the time that stretches out in front that scares her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She had been so close to choosing not to regenerate, last time. This was supposed to be her last body. Her curtain call. But now… well, this would always be the body that found out. The one that started it all, even if it was really there all along inside her. The Doctor is used to moments like that, the world shifting around her in an instant, puzzle pieces slotting into place and changing everything. But this is different. This is more. She likes to keep a safe distance from the central threads of her adventures, but now it’s more like </span>
  <em>
    <span>she’s</span>
  </em>
  <span> the thread and someone’s cut her off from the spool.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It makes her angry that someone got to do that to her. It makes her angry that the people in her lives didn’t care enough to fill in the gap for her. It makes her angry that the Master used it as some kind of sick legup in his age-old conquest. But that wasn’t… entirely fair. He’d told her, which was more than anyone else on Gallifrey had ever done, apparently. He’d cared enough - been angry enough - to burn up everyone else on Gallifrey, too.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That’s what drives the anger from her veins in the end: the image of Gallifrey, burnt. The memory of the grenade underneath her thumb, and the Master’s eyes, dragging her down, beseeching her to end them both. It’s the knowledge that anger leads to a climax, a cliff, after which there will only be spiraling emptiness.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And she’s got quite enough of that going on right now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So she sits, and spirals, and thinks about immortality. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There’s an old tale on Gallifrey,” she says, mainly to keep her brain from veering off into twenty different trains of thought. “Of a Time Lord in the early days, before the Citadel. Her job was to roll a big rock up to the top of a high mountain. She thought it was terribly unfair, of course, and she could see no point to it, but she pushed the rock all the same, bit by bit, up the hill, and by sundown she had reached the summit. She returned to her village, only to be told she had another load to carry. This time she had to take two long planks of wood. She moaned, and she complained, but she took them all the same. Each day she was given a new delivery, and each day the mountain seemed a little higher, her load a little heavier. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“On the twelfth day, she was given a large sheet of metal. The other loads had been cumbersome, but this was much too difficult to make the trip in a day. She got it halfway up the mountain and then started to walk home to eat with her family. But as she descended, her family met her on the way up. They had all their belongings with them. She realized that she had been taking the materials for building a new house up the mountain, and that they expected to sleep in the new house that very night.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“In distress, she ran back to the sheet of metal, and began hauling it up the mountain again. Her family passed her as she walked, and it was almost dawn by the time she finally reached the top. Her family was cold and weak, but not harmed, and they built the house on top of the mountain together.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She waits for Ryan to make a snarky remark, and when none comes, she pretends.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, ‘course there’s a moral!” she retorts. “Each time up the hill is one of our regenerations. It gets harder and seems more pointless with each life we live. And by the twelfth… Well, it’s easy to give up. But it’s important not to. It’s important to keep living as much as you can.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor and the Master had always hated that story. They asked all the tricky questions they could think of, like, </span>
  <em>
    <span>why didn’t they just tell the Time Lord what she was carrying the materials for?</span>
  </em>
  <span> and </span>
  <em>
    <span>why didn’t her family help her?</span>
  </em>
  <span> and </span>
  <em>
    <span>why did they build their house on top of such a high mountain?</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She’d never considered the possibility that the tale just flat-out didn’t apply to her. If she had to change it, though, how would she? Was that why regenerating felt so much harder in these later lives - because she’d had countless trips up the hill already? She did alright with that, though. She kept living. No-one could say the Doctor hadn’t thrown everything she had at life. Because she had. And she always would.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No, it wasn’t that she would get tired out. She was worried, instead, that the hill wasn’t nearly as high as it ought to be. Her rocks and wood were light, like they were made of paper, and the house she would build trembled in the faintest breeze. One day, she would reach the top of the hill early, too early, and her house would simply float away. She would float away, too, the familiar trudge of the hill path gone, no family, no ties, no purpose, nothing to keep her to anything. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She blinks hard, putting a hand on the floor beneath her to comfort herself that it’s solid. She feels tiny and huge all at once. Yaz had once asked her why she made herself seem smaller than she was, and she hadn’t had a good answer. She has one now, but it doesn’t mean she could put it into words any better than before.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then she hears a faint rustle behind her. She goes to look, but before she can, an achingly familiar voice says, “Stop.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She swallows hard and doesn’t move.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t look,” says the voice again. “Or I’ll have to go. Oh, you can believe it’s me, can’t you, Doctor?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Adric?” she asks, her voice cracking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s right,” he says, a smile in his voice. “Hello, Doctor. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve had eight - no, </span>
  <em>
    <span>nine</span>
  </em>
  <span> new regenerations since I saw you last. It’s been more than a while.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know. I liked most of them. I liked all of them much better than that floppy-haired menace with the cricket whites.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She laughs, but it sticks in her throat. Adric hadn’t taken so well to her fifth regeneration, and before they’d had the chance to make it all better, he’d gone and - and -</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s alright,” Adric’s voice says gently. “I don’t blame you, Doctor. I’m sure you know that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She does, but it’s not his call to make. Adric was a child. A </span>
  <em>
    <span>child.</span>
  </em>
  <span> And she didn’t stop him from dying.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I wish you’d been a bit less clever,” she tells him. “A bit less determined. You learnt some of that from me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Adric sighs. “I’m not here to talk about my death.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course you’re not,” she mutters. “You’re here to talk about mine.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Rather, the lack of it. Do you know how insensitive it is to yearn for death in the presence of someone who is actually, properly dead?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sorry.” She pushes her face into her knees. “But I’m not yearning. I just -”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know. You thought it’d happen one day. I don’t suppose I can convince you that all that time is a blessing?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She thinks of time. All that time. Ever since the Time War, time has been different, haunted and eerie and each step through it has been her fighting the constant isolation it brings. She’s so broken, and time seems only to bring the possibilities of breaking further.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not a chance.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Alright. Fair enough, really. I do wonder what it would be like, though. To have more time. It’s silly, isn’t it? Both of us wanting what the other has.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor thinks that might just be the oldest concept in the universe. Doesn’t mean it’s not silly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. I just… I’m starting to realize that I had this idea of what death was like. I imagined… Well. It’s silly.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Everything is,” says Adric. “Go on.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I thought that by the time I was ready to leave, maybe everyone else would be, too. And then everyone I cared about - well, most of them would already be gone, of course, but then I could follow them. And it’d be like… one big TARDIS trip. The fourteen doctors, and all their companions. Except it would be a TARDIS, because we wouldn’t be going anywhere, we’d just… be.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That </span>
  <em>
    <span>is</span>
  </em>
  <span> silly.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know. But I always had this stupid, beautiful hope, that maybe, just maybe, at the end of everything, I wouldn’t be alone.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Everyone is alone, all of the time,” says Adric. “But only if you look on the inside of your head. Outside of that, you’re never really alone. It’s just a matter of how far to the nearest person. See?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor wipes the hot tears that are tracking their way down her cold cheeks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re such a smartass,” she tells him, and grins when he laughs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I definitely like this version of you better. Even if you have got nearly the same stupid hair.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oi!” She turns around, ready to ruffle his hair, already picturing his indignant expression.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But there’s no-one there.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Adric?” she calls.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nothing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She lets herself cry properly then, in great shaking sobs that rip through her lungs and make the back of her throat sore. But crying only ever lasts so long, and when her tears have dried into messy salt lines down her cheeks and neck, she lies facedown on the cold metal floor, exhausted.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Since she’s immortal, she could just start punching in one direction. She’s done that before, stuck in a billion-year puzzle, running until she was so tired it was all she could do to keep upright. She’d get through her walls in much less time than a billion years. If the Judoon didn’t notice, that is.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She makes a fist with her hand and hits the floor once. It hurts, so she stops.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know that mood,” says another voice, another crack through her heart. “Out with it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She screws up her face against the floor.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come on, Doctor. You need to think. How are you going to get out of this one? How are you going to -”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not going to </span>
  <em>
    <span>win,”</span>
  </em>
  <span> the Doctor says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Clara goes quiet then, for long enough that the Doctor feels bad.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sorry,” she mumbles. “But I think I have to accept that at the end of all this I’m going to lose.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Clara sighs. The Doctor feels a corner of her mouth pull up. She’s missed those sighs, just loud enough for her to notice every time, a sure cue that she’s missed something.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re the most ridiculous person in the universe,” Clara tells her. “And the most extraordinary. And my favourite. See? You’ve already won three things.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A lump forms in the Doctor’s throat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re too nice to me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not being nice. I’m telling you the truth. Do you still not understand? I see you that way. Everyone who travels with you sees you that way. It’s like you open our lives up. We get to be so much more with you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But I mess you all up in the end. I get you lost, or killed, or turned into magical puddles.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That last one is very speci -”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t want to talk about it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fine. Fine. But I’m sure whoever they were, they knew the risk, and they made their choice. Like I did. Like everyone did. I know it doesn’t make it easier for you, but I just wish you’d realize. It’s not your fault.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor wishes she could believe it. She really does.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I turn you into people who would do that. I make everyone around me willing to die, and then they do, and it’s just me again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Clara laughs. It’s a bit condescending, actually. The Doctor had forgotten how she used to do that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You make people around you willing to die? It’s called loving someone, Doctor. Loving you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ugh,” says the Doctor eloquently.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, no, you don’t get to back out of this one. I won’t let you regret not being alone. Love is always important. You said that, remember? </span>
  <em>
    <span>Love is always wise.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Doesn’t make it any easier.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Since when did you care about easy? Nothing is ever easy. And it’s a bit hypocritical of you to mope about not dying at the same time as moping about everyone else doing it, actually.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve already had that pointed out to me,” the Doctor mumbles.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You can’t have it both ways. Either death is bad, and closes doors forever, and makes love hard, or death is good because everyone secretly wants an ending. Which is it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The first thing young Time Lords learn is that paradoxes suck, and the second thing is that they are always possible. Facts often exist in perfect contradiction. Death can be good and not good, love can mean everything and nothing, and the Doctor can love and hate Clara for making her think about all this in the first place.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Neither. Both. Everything. Nothing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Clara huffs an impatient breath, and though the Doctor can’t see her face, she knows she’s wearing a matching smile of impatience. Impatient love. A perfect contradiction.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Hang on.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wait. That thing I said about love being wise - it was just - I was alone. How did you -”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I love you,” says Clara, her voice growing fainter. “Goodbye, Doctor.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor pushes herself up, staggering towards wherever Clara’s voice was coming from, but there’s nothing there. Just empty space. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She feels unbalanced, slightly pissed off, and like she doesn’t understand anything at all. Clara was always good at making her feel that way, and the Doctor always appreciated it. Not many of her companions could properly humble her like that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Consider me humbled,” she mutters, and kicks at the floor. It’s very hard.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She should probably start thinking about escaping for real. It’s going to be a proper challenge, with no door to pry, no guards to wheedle, no electrical panels to hack… It’s the sort of cage that makes her wish someone else knew where she was. Being broken out by someone else is always easier than doing the breaking. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She goes back to the window and presses her face up against the bars. Maybe if she stands here for long enough, someone will see her. If only she knew someone who had been imprisoned for life and still found a way to go on dates…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hello, sweetie,” says River. “Ooh, you really have redecorated, haven’t you? I like it. I mean, I </span>
  <em>
    <span>really </span>
  </em>
  <span>like it. The body. Not the prison cell.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor forces herself not to turn around. </span>
  <em>
    <span>She’s not real. She can’t be.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can I look at you?” she asks, her heartbeats thumping in her ears. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Better not.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Right.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Aren’t you going to say hello properly?” River asks, a smile in her voice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor grins. “I can’t touch you either, can I?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“To my deepest regret, no.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shame. This body’s not good with touch. It might have been nice to… you know. Break it in.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>River laughs her low laugh. The Doctor knows that laugh intimately well.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That would have been nice. But it’s not why I’m here, is it? Why am I here, Doctor?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, the usual. Contemplating the meaning of life, and all that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Has something changed?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes. No. Spoilers. Do I need to worry about spoilers?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think we’re fine.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then yes. Long story short, I’m… not going to die. Your regenerations, River, you wasted all your regenerations when I wouldn’t even have -”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shut up. You’re about to regret everything again. I told you I wouldn’t change those moments for the world, and I wouldn’t. Everything we did, Doctor, everything we saw… I lived my life like it was poetry. And it was.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor does shut up for a moment. She remembers being a skinny man in a suit, handcuffed, terrified, confused, and slowly becoming aware of some huge grief she was missing out on.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Maybe there’s still time to change it,” she says. “I could - I could go back to the Library, to your save data from before I said goodbye, and maybe there’s something on Gallifrey that could bring you back.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Doctor.” River sounds very tired.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If I have to live forever, can’t I have someone to live forever with? Can’t I have you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re missing the point, dear.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then tell me the point, please, because I’d really like to know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re going to live forever, and you’re going to have to watch everyone around you die. Forever. You can’t save them.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor lifts her head and lets it fall back against the bars with a soft thud.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You can’t get through this one by trying to save them all. You can’t get through it by trying to save me, and I’m sorry, but it’s true. You’re going to grieve, but you’re also going to live, no matter what.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor is on top of a high mountain, out in the stratosphere, and she’s floating upwards. She couldn’t see all of the sky at once if she tried. She’s also trapped in a tiny room, a woman she doesn’t know yet telling her not to change the future. There’s the promise of anguish, as wide and unending as the sky, and she can’t stop herself from floating right into it. It’s a tunnel. It’s an ocean. She’s trapped. She’s set loose.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How do I live like this?” she whispers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You live it like everyone does. One foot in front of the other. One grief at a time.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But River hasn’t lived nearly as long as the Doctor. River was still so young when she died, and she doesn’t understand, can’t understand that grief multiplies and spreads and grows exponentially once you lose your hundredth friend. Your thousandth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If I accept that everyone else dies, can I have you back?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>River laughs. “That’s the beauty of forever, isn’t it? Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor imagines having River on the TARDIS again, getting to brainstorm date night ideas, having the luxury of being lost in someone, even just for a little while.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I love you,” says the Doctor fiercely.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I never said it enough. I love you, I love you, I -”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Doctor. I </span>
  <em>
    <span>know.</span>
  </em>
  <span> I’m always with you. How could I forget?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But you’re not really with me,” says the Doctor, her breathing starting to come fast. “Are you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s only silence.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“River? No, no, River, please, come back, come </span>
  <em>
    <span>back.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>She hits her head on the bars again, hard. It’s not as if she’ll die. Even if she regenerates, she’ll never die. Maybe she’ll get a new body. Maybe she’ll get two new bodies. Would feeling less like herself help at the moment? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Probably not.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She looks out at the stars, and oddly, they don’t bring her peace. She can’t help but feel as if they’re staring back at her. All those eyes, billions of years old, ancient and unyielding. Maybe one day she’ll become one of them and just… wait. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She can’t remember what it feels like to be young.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Theta?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She screws her eyes shut and sinks to the floor, pushing her face against the cold rock.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Please don’t.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Theta, it’s me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Koschei’s voice is high and unbroken. It’s his first regeneration, before he called himself the Master, before they were even at the academy together. It’s the first voice she came to know as a friend’s voice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know,” she says, because it’s too painful to say anything else.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why are you sad, Theta?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She takes a deep breath. “Because I miss you. This version of you. And the version of me that went along with it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But I’m not dead.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” she acknowledges, “Probably not. You’re terrible at dying.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Like you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I used to think so. Turns out I’m way worse at it than you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t worry, Theta. We’ll be together forever.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It forces another contradiction into her. She loves the Master (hates him). Wants to help him (kill him). Wants to run away together forever (abandon him and never look back).</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We won’t,” she tells him. “Sorry.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But I want to live forever. And I want to live with you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, you can’t,” she says, louder than she meant to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She can tell that he’s gone without having to turn and look. Her brain isn’t good enough to sustain someone she hasn’t met for centuries for very long. For her, Koschei died a long time ago.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She really hopes that’s the end of it. She’s not sure how many more faces she can take, all those people she loved, all dead, all gone. The thought has crossed her mind that this is part of an elaborate torture scheme, but the Judoon aren’t clever enough for that, and this is… too personal. No-one but the Doctor could torture the Doctor this effectively.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That’s why, when she hears the next voice, she thinks she should have seen it coming.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hi, Doctor. It’s me. Amy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And me. I’m here too,” Rory adds.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She </span>
  <em>
    <span>really </span>
  </em>
  <span>should have seen it coming. The Ponds’ voices make her eyes dangerously hot, threatening to spill over again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hello, Ponds,” she says wetly. “Long time, no see.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s the distinct sound of feet shuffling awkwardly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Um,” says Rory. “Just checking. Do you want us to officially forgive you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why can’t you ask like a normal person?” Amy demands.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because! He - she - they?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She is fine,” the Doctor says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because </span>
  <em>
    <span>she </span>
  </em>
  <span>is the least normal person I know,” Rory says firmly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fine. Oh, yeah, by the way, Doctor. Looking good.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor grins and mutters, “Still got it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Amy!” Rory whines. “We’re here to talk about serious things, not to flirt.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I really don’t mind,” the Doctor insists.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“See?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Serious things,” Rory repeats.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ugh, fine,” Amy groans dramatically. “You know we forgive you, right?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know,” says the Doctor, tasting ash in her mouth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We really do forgive you,” says Rory. “I mean, life wasn’t exactly what we expected and all, but it turned out okay.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know,” says the Doctor, who did as much research on their lives as she could without treading on their timelines.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And I’m sorry,” says Amy, “for leaving you. I don’t regret it. But I’m sorry.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They go quiet for a moment, and the Doctor doesn’t dare to ask if they’re still there in case it makes them go away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But then Amy asks, “What’s wrong?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Basically, immortal. Life, but forever. And no-one to be there. I’m alone. Forever. And I know, I know, I’m being hypocritical, because you’re dead and you don’t want to be.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I wouldn’t say that,” says Amy. “I mean, I didn’t desperately want to die, but it… it felt like the right time, in the end. It was peaceful. Like a wave returning to the ocean.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Amy’s words make her soul ache. It’s a deep exhaustion, like something essential for living has drained right out of her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And I knew Rory was waiting for me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s the bit I hate,” the Doctor admits. “Not Rory. Never Rory. You’re lovely, Rory.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thanks?” says Rory.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I hate that there’s no-one waiting for me. Not ever. I’ll never return to the ocean, because I didn’t come from the ocean in the first place. There’s no deep peace at the end of the road, just more road, and I’m already so tired.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I thought you didn’t believe in life after death,” says Rory.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t. Didn’t. Knowing that I won’t get death, I’m realizing that I believed in… something. Not life, but… maybe my atoms would get to be with everyone else’s atoms, and we’d all be atoms together. Or something.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s a beat of silence.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’re all still atoms together,” says Amy. “As long as you’re in the universe, your atoms are close to ours. Relatively speaking. But your atoms are just - well - they’re doing things.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think I’d like for my atoms to stop doing things one day,” says the Doctor, her voice breaking. She tastes salt again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know,” says Amy. “I know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor sniffs and scrubs at her face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’re gonna go and be atoms now,” says Rory. “We love you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We really, really love you,” Amy adds.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Love you too,” the Doctor chokes out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She stays slumped against the wall for what feels like hours. Could be minutes. Days. Decades. It’s never been clearer that time simply doesn’t matter to her. Eventually, her eyes stop leaking and her nose stops running. Her brain feels a tiny bit clearer. Just a tiny bit.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She stands up, and once again, she looks out the window.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The stars aren’t eyes. She sees that now. They’re atoms. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Atoms upon atoms upon atoms. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>All of them have been scattered about since the dawn of time, moving about, making bonds, breaking bonds, all of it. She wonders how many have been part of a person. She wonders how many have been part of love. It’s just a chemical reaction like any other, and yet somehow, there’s so much meaning sewed into the fabric of reality whenever it happens.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>How much love is looking down at her from the stars?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tears run down her cheeks again but she doesn’t try to wipe them away. A deep peace settles over her. She is tired. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>So </span>
  </em>
  <span>tired. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But there isn’t anything different about her, what makes her up, her atoms, compared to the rest of the universe. And atoms can’t be tired. They go on forever.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For a second, just for a fleeting glimpse, she feels gratitude. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>To be allowed to go on, forever, without end, a constant in the universe, is… perhaps… some huge privilege. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe one day she’ll be just like an atom. A conduit for the universe’s energy. She can help uncountable people to feel, love and anger and happiness and hate, and she can do it without end.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then she feels tired again. But that’s okay. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s just atoms.</span>
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</p><p>
  <span>There’s a bright flash of light, but the Doctor doesn’t turn around to look for the source. There’s one more person she expected to come. She’s sure it’s him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Captain Jack Harkness, at your service!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She smiles.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey, Jack.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Aren’t you gonna turn around? I’ve been looking forward to this.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What, and look at you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Uh. Yeah?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not a chance. We’ve gotta talk properly first, don’t we?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“... Sure, I mean, I’m not pushed for time. Shoot.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How did you cope? When you found out you were immortal?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I… um. That’s getting real deep real fast, doc. Not that I’m not all for that in different circumstances, but… why do you wanna know?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Take a guess,” she says miserably.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But you said - I thought Time Lords were limited in their regenerations?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s really complicated, but basically, they are, and I’m not.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jack gives a low whistle.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you doing okay?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes. No. Maybe. I don’t know. How did you cope?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not well. To be honest, the first thing I did was try to kill myself. I wouldn’t recommend it. Very painful, and after a while, it… changes you. I stopped when I started to imagine all the ways I could bleed out from a paperclip.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And after that?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I got reeaaaally drunk. For… oh, I don’t know, a few decades. I took a nap that lasted five years. And, y’know, when I wasn’t napping, I was -”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think I can guess.” She laughs, shaking her head. “I don’t think it’d be quite so therapeutic for me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, you’re always welcome to try it out.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She groans, and he laughs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But seriously. Any words of wisdom? Deep revelations? I’ve had about five in the last half hour, so I might as well get another out of the way while we’re at it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jack sighs, and she hears footsteps move across the room towards her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t be alone. I mean, I guess you know that already. Life is what gives life meaning. People are what give people meaning.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor smiles. Almost every single one of her companions has told her the equivalent of that at some point. For all their flaws, she thinks humans might just be the wisest little race in the galaxy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thanks,” she says. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She sniffs the air, suddenly aware of a change in scent. There’s a cologne - a very specific cologne. A hand touches her shoulder, and she jumps.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wait. Are you - are you really here?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jack spins her around, and then she’s face to face with his very solid chest. She reaches out a hand and pokes it, just to make sure. It’s warm. It’s really him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course I’m really here,” Jack grins down at her. “Who did you think you were talking to? A ghost, or something?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“... Or something.” She spreads her hand over his chest. She can feel his heartbeat. It grounds her in a way she can’t express.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This new you is weird. And tiny. Weirdly tiny.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oi,” she mutters, but then she’s engulfed in a hug. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>This body hasn’t had many of those, but she remembers the basic principles. She wraps her arms around him and squeezes. Her face is pushed up against the rough wool fabric of his coat, and she breathes it in, stupidly happy to not be alone anymore. Jack pats her head when he releases her, smiling so wide she thinks his face might break in two.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You look great,” he says. “It really suits you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She pokes him in the chest again, hard.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t think I can’t still take you,” she warns.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Be my guest,” says Jack, and she rolls her eyes. “First things first, though, let’s get out of here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He raises his wrist to show her his vortex manipulator.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I thought I -”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, I got it working again,” he interrupts. “And I’m here, rescuing you, so you don’t get to complain.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fine. But I’m disabling it as soon as we’re back in the TARDIS.” She takes his offered hand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The TARDIS it is, then,” Jack grins, and activates the vortex manipulator. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The last thing the Doctor sees before they rip through spacetime is one singular, bright star twinkling through the window of her cell.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Yes, the huge whitespace is intentional. No, I have no idea if I’m making any sense or not. A lot of the atom talk here was inspired by the finale of The Good Place, particularly Chidi’s speech about the wave returning to the ocean. It’s just something I find really inherently fascinating, and it’s such a huge shift of perspective for the Doctor, never getting to have a final ending, never being at peace in that way.</p><p>Please let me know what you thought in comments, or you can <a href="https://gay-star-knight.tumblr.com/">come yell at my tumblr</a>! I’m a lot more unsure about this than I am about most other things I write, so I’d really appreciate knowing if you enjoyed it. </p><p>Stay safe, stay sane, and please stay home if you can. &lt;3 &lt;3 &lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
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